Israel Rejects UN Report on Companies Linked to Settlements

The UN human rights office said on Wednesday it had identified 206 companies doing business linked to Israeli settlements in the West Bank, Reuters reports. Israel’s ambassador, Aviva Raz Shechter, rejected the concept as “fundamentally illegitimate.”

“It is outside the competence and the authority of the Human Rights Council to deal with blacklisting,” she said.

Israel did not want to see the UN human rights office at the “forefront of a BDS (Boycott, Divestment, Sanction)” movement, she said.

U.S. Ambassador Nikki Haley said Wednesday, “the fact that the report was issued at all is yet another reminder of the Council’s anti-Israel obsession.”

The UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights issued the report on regarding the companies accused of doing business in territories captured by Israel in 1967, but didn’t list them, delaying the publication of the controversial “blacklist.”